


In Hushed Whispers

by mittamoo



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 07:33:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16113767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mittamoo/pseuds/mittamoo
Summary: For Neil, words have always been a warzone. Dangerous things fraught with traps one wrong move springing forth the sharp slide of a blade, and later the feeling of pulled out hair and throbbing ribs. Eventually he learns that silence is the safest option. Silence doesn’t allow for a slip in accent or the wrong turn of phrase. Staying silent stops blow after blow from hard fists and sharp voice I’m doing this because I love you Abram, you need to learn.





	In Hushed Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back after years, have a fic I promised a long time ago!

For Neil, words have always been a warzone. Dangerous things fraught with traps one wrong move springing forth the sharp slide of a blade, and later the feeling of pulled out hair and throbbing ribs. Eventually he learns that silence is the safest option. Silence doesn’t allow for a slip in accent or the wrong turn of phrase. Staying silent stops blow after blow from hard fists and sharp voice _I’m doing this because I love you Abram, you need to learn._

It becomes second nature to stay silent wherever possible, then it stops being a struggle to stay silent and more of a challenge to speak when needed. A red scoreboard illuminating his head counting down the number of words left. Sometimes the number was high enough that he could speak without having to carefully choose each word lest he run out, other days every word counted. There were days when the countdown went dark stuck at nothing, not a single word to be found. These days, Neil quickly learnt were fraught with danger too as messing up with speech was a danger so was being too quiet. He became acquainted with the dull throb of bruising once again.

After his mother had died, it seemed as if the scoreboard was broken more often than on. It became a dangerous game of staying silent and pushing himself far past his limits to force out words that he did not have; stilted and awkward from his mouth. Phantom pains dancing across his scalp pushing him ever forwards. It was hard and exhausting in a way he’d never really felt before.

When he’d finally settled in Millport it became something of a reprieve for him in more ways than one. Even in such a small town he went mostly unnoticed, alone as he was the need to speak to keep himself safe became lesser and he found it easy to go days, and on one occasion two weeks without having to utter a word to anyone. In his spare time he took to teaching himself sign language rationalising all the ways it could be useful in slipping away, being unnoticed, underestimated, and overlooked, when the harsh words of his mother filled his ears and head with a static chant. _Weak._

Not being under the constant oppression of stress, of life or death. Without the need of keep pushing forward. Without needing to hold torn flesh together lest he bleed out before they can stop to stitch him together once again. It made things easier and soon he found himself staying quiet not because he needed to but because he wanted to. The scoreboard in his head climbing up, up, up. No shortage of words to give, only nobody to give them to. Then he’s stopped and beaten with his own racquet and he finds himself signing his own death warrant to David Wymack and his foxes. 

*****

Almost a full year later it seems as if he’s able to stop and catch his breath, to really _breathe_ for the first time in nineteen years. For the first month or so, of what has become the rest of a life longer than he’d ever imagined, ever even dared hoped for even as a child locked in his dark bedroom in Baltimore, everything is good, great even. It’s the happiest he’s ever been the countdown in his head only given a vague awareness the lack of stress pressing in, the absence of the press of his inevitable demise alone and in pain leaves him with enough words to speak freely.

Then the nightmares begin to crawl in, of events he’d long since deemed insignificant causing him to wake shaking in a cold sweat. The box of memories labelled ‘don’t think about’ splitting and breaking at the seams, searching to destroy him from the inside. He once again feels like death is looming over him constantly. He starts to sleep with a gun under his pillow again, tries not to acknowledge that one evening Andrew had sat and replaced the bullets with blanks lest he kill a member of the team; if it came down to it there is still a lot of damage he can cause with a gun full of blanks if he really needed to. Tries to push down the shame that comes with the way the smell of cooking meat left him retching in the bathroom and hollowed out entirely for days after.

He’s supposed to be safe now but he feels like little more than a pathetic child cowering from the loud noises caused by a thunderstorm.  Really he should have expected this to happen after weeks upon weeks of the crawling fear that every stranger he passes was a threat, that could hurt him- could hurt his foxes, but the morning he woke up gasping and found he did not have a single word to give arrived like a knife to the gut. Andrew, ever perceptive of Neil’s well-being lately, notices his state. A blank mask concealing a growing concern- he approaches a murmured question on his lips which Neil answers with a nod. But- Andrew stays completely still, waiting, so he nods again feeling desperate. A raised eyebrow in response tells him that he’s waiting for a vocal response and Neil he- he can’t. He can’t. _He can’t._

Raising shaking hands, he shapes fingers clumsy from tight, restricting scar tissue covering each knuckle into an old yet familiar shape. _Yes._ Seemingly taken aback by the signing; Andrew continues to watch his face before reaching out and winding an arm across Neil’s shoulders to pull him to sit down on the couch. Once seated, he pushes his face onto the crook of Andrew’s neck and together they sit for an hour- maybe more and wait for the shaking of his body to subside. He can’t carry on like this forever. The small amount of time he has endured the flashbacks, panic attacks and fear was already killing him. So the next day that he has words to give, he finds himself swallowing his suspicions and finds himself going to an appointment with Betsy.

Things as they usually went got worse before they got better, days spent being unable to leave the dorm or sometimes even out of bed. Somethings seems to stay the same, the flashbacks and panic attacks did not lesson, and despite that, he was learning to manage them and their triggers with Betsy’s help. He stopped eating cooked meat all together and even went as far as Andrew not letting people cook meat in their dorm. There were still days where the words simply didn’t come. He needed to learn to be okay with that.

Telling the rest of the foxes was one of the first steps involved in making peace with this part of himself and out of all of the reactions he had anticipated, a firm determination to learn sign language to make things easier for Neil on bad days had not been one of them. The first time that Andrew asks the question with hands instead of words he feels like the air has been punched out of him in the best possible way. A warmth in his chest settles and cements more and more with each and every conversation he has with the foxes via hands, their hands clumsy and words simple but the most effort anyone had ever put into doing something _nice_ for him he’d ever experienced before.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!!!! feedback is worshipped at an altar


End file.
